Data Cleansing for Bills of Materials (BOMs)

Throughout the industry there seems to be a slight misconception that Data Cleansing servicesare only implemented for the MRO Item Master, however, these services are equally useful for standardizing and enhancing BOMs.

The commonly used industry term “BOM” stands for Bill of Materials, which plays a key role in the overall efficiency of equipment maintenance. A Bill of Materials is a list of the raw materials, sub-assemblies, intermediate assemblies, sub-components, and parts required to build a piece of equipment. A typical Bill of Materials should include the following:

• BOM Level
• Part Number
• Part Name
• Phase
• Description
• Quantity
• Unit of Measure
• Procurement Type
• Reference Designators
• BOM Notes

The purpose of the Bill of Materials is to identify which components are required to build or repair a piece of equipment, ensuring that the right parts are available, in the right quantity, at the right time. When every minute of equipment downtime can cost a company thousands of dollars, it is absolutely critical that the maintenance department have the necessary data to identify, stock and replenish the specific parts that make up each of their valuable assets.

Just like the MRO Item Master, the Bill of Materials requires cleansing, standardization and enhancement to ensure accurate and efficient search ability, identification of duplication, and reduction of excess inventory. With quality data at their fingertips, maintenance and purchasing professionals can now set accurate order points and order quantities, while quickly identifying and locating parts when needed.

Benefits of quality BOMs

There are many benefits to having a clean Bill of Materials, including:

Cost Savings

• Reduction of inventory – disposition of excess-active items
• Efficient asset utilization – identification of part duplication across equipment
•  Reduction of expedited part orders

Improved Efficiency

• Efficient part identification, search ability and location
• Improved reporting capabilities

Maintenance Reliability

• Elimination of incorrect material purchases
• Elimination of material shortages and false stock-outs

For more information on Data Cleansing and related services offered by I.M.A. Ltd., please visit www.imaltd.com or contact info@imaltd.com.